The Life You've Always Wanted

Well, awesome. I really am super grateful to have had a part in Aubrey getting baptized this morning. It was one of those things, yeah. It was one of those things whenever Al and I were first talking about Sauldam and God was, you know, aligning all the details. He said, now there’s even, there’s this high school student you need to know about. I think she’s ready to get baptized, Bubba. You know, that’s what he said to me. And I’ve just had a joy of getting to know her and her parents over the past couple months and super excited about that. And I fully believe that’s just one of many that are continuing to be baptized here. We’re super excited about that.

But I’ve got a question for us as we’re opening up our time this morning. You guys think there’s such a thing as an unsaved Christian? Oh, mixed response. Unsaved Christian, a couple years ago I read this book, is called The Unsaved Christian. There’s this pastor, I think he’s in the Atlanta area, something like that. And he was just digging through some of the stats of how many people, especially in the Southern Baptist Convention, join a church and then meet Jesus and get baptized afterwards. For me, that was my experience as a kid. I was baptized as an eight-year-old and through that process joined the church that I had grown up at but didn’t meet Jesus until I was 15. Delayed getting baptized, in fact, until I was 22 as a seminary student. So I do not have the exemplary record for you to follow. But I would have been that. I would have been someone that called himself a Christian, that would have been seen as a Christian, that didn’t actually know Jesus personally. You know, I actually think that if we’re going to lay semantics aside, there’s plenty of people in our world, in the South, and maybe even a couple of us in the room this morning, that know about Jesus but don’t really know Him personally.

And I wonder, you know, with that, there’s another question. What would you give up to go to Jesus today? What would you give up to go to heaven today and just go ahead and be with Him? Man, maybe the best question to ask is actually, what are you willing to give up to know Him more deeply now? Everything. You know, we’re going to read about a man in the Gospel of Mark this morning. You go ahead and open up to Mark chapter 10 where we’re going to continue our series through the Gospel. And we’re going to read about a guy that I think would have been called an unsaved Christian.

But first, I’m going to pray for us and then we’ll jump into it afterward. If you will, pray with me, okay? Lord, thank You for today. God, it’s an incredibly exciting day as we get to celebrate one of our students making her faith public through baptism. God, it’s an exciting and sobering day for me personally later. God, it’s always an incredibly weighty and joyful task that I have to open up Your Word and get to share it. Lord, I pray that You would help me just to communicate what this book says. God, that I wouldn’t overspeak it, Lord, that I wouldn’t underspeak it either. Holy Spirit, would You please get a hold of me from the words that I say and how I say them to how folks are receiving it in the room. God, I pray, would You please get a hold of this time and help us, Father. Help us to be real with You, Lord, that we would lay aside pretense, that we would lay aside our heritage, that we would lay aside the, I’m doing blessed, brother, and that we would just for a moment be real with You and ourselves. God, I trust Your Word will speak to us. And I’m asking that You would help us to receive it. Thank You, Jesus. Amen.

How about this? Open up Mark chapter 10. We’re going to start in verse 17. This will be a story that if you’ve been raised in church or if you have been adjacent to Christianity for very long, you’ve probably heard some of the themes and the characters of this moment. Mark chapter 10. And verses will be on your screen. I’m going to start reading in verse 17. It says this. As He, Jesus, was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before Him and asked Him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus said. No one’s Good except for God alone. Ah, okay. You know the commandments. Don’t murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. The man said to Jesus, Teacher, I have kept these from my youth.

I’m going to break there. Goodness, right out the gate, we see this man so earnest, so honest. We see a man pursuing something. I think he’s pursuing the life that you and I all want. And I’m going to explain that a little bit more here in a moment. But first, we have to ask the question, who is this guy? Who is the guy that has come up to Jesus? If you’re opening the Bible yourself, you might have a heading there that says, The rich, young ruler. You see, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are three gospel accounts. They are three spiritual biographies that in different ways tell the same overall story about Jesus’ life and ministry. And all three of them write about this moment. And they describe this man in three different ways. And we take those and we overlay them and we can create an image of who this guy is.

Here in the gospel of Mark, we are about to see he’s got many possessions. He is rich. If you were to open this up to Matthew, Matthew calls him young. And if you go to the gospel of Luke, Luke calls this man a ruler. So this man, this guy that comes up to Jesus is a rich, young ruler. Ideal candidate for a fledgling movement that Jesus would have been starting, right? And this man has everything together. He comes to Jesus. He’s got the right posture. He comes up. He kneels down before Jesus. Something that we see often throughout Mark’s gospel. We’ve seen demonized people kneel before Jesus. We’ve seen religious leaders kneel before Jesus. We’ve seen sick people kneel before Jesus. We’ve seen desperate daddies kneel before Jesus. And this man kneels before Jesus too. And he’s obviously submitting to a higher authority. He’s got the right posture.

He’s even got the right theology. He says, good teacher. And Jesus kind of speaks back on that. That’s because the word good there would have been reserved for God. In the Jewish culture and custom, only God Himself was good. So for this man to call Jesus good teacher would have at least said the teacher that comes from God. If not, the teacher of God or God who teaches. This man had the right theology. He asks the right question. What must I do to have eternal life? Oh, that’s the question we’re all asking. I really think it is. I think that every one of us in the room, if you were to be honest with yourself, and with me and with your neighbor, you would say, I want to live forever. I want to delay death as long as possible. And when I do die, I want to make sure that I am going to heaven. I want to live eternally. I want to live with God. Now, God, I hope He doesn’t take too much from me. I hope He doesn’t impose on my habits and my desires. But I do want to live with Him. You wouldn’t be here today unless you had some sort of desire to know God in that way, right?

This man is asking the right question. But the issue is the focus is on the wrong person. He says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Though he calls Jesus good, he is hedging his bets on how good he can be, right? He is saying, God, obviously, I can do something to get eternal life. I can do something to save myself. What is it? Just tell me what it is and I’ll do it. I’ll be good. I think that we do this too. We say, oh, God, I’ll just, I’ll stop doing this habit. Or God, I’ll start reading my Bible. I’ll start going to church. God, I’ll start giving a tithe to church. I’ll start telling people about You. Or I’ll stop watching this TV show. Or I’ll stop consuming this thing. And we make eternal life a matter of what I can do for God. How good I can make myself. Friend, it doesn’t work that way. There’s no one good except for God alone. Jesus calls him on it. But this man, he’s got the right posture, the right theology, asked the right question. He’s even got the right morals. Jesus starts rattling off these commandments. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal and so forth. And the man says, I’ve kept all of these from my youth. I’ve done it. I’m good. A couple of us in the room recognize when Jesus says, you know, the commandments, you know where that comes from, right? If you’ve been in church very long, you would recognize these as some of the 10 commandments. Anybody in the room recognize 10 commandments? A couple of us.

You see, God wanted to create a people for Himself. And He calls this man named Abraham. He says, Abraham, come to me and I’m going to make your offspring so numerous. They will be more than the stars of the sky, more than the grains of sand on the beach. That’s the family and the nation and the kingdom I’m going to make come from you. All you have to do is orient your life around me. But here’s the deal. I’m going to send this family, this nation into another place where they’re going to be dominated by another nation for 400 years.

You fast forward from Abraham through a couple generations and you get to a guy named Moses. Moses is a Jewish man who’s born into the Egyptian Pharaoh’s house. And that’s important because about the time Moses was born, Israel had been enslaved for about 400 years. God had taken this family of people from one man, Abraham, to millions of people. And Egypt was oppressing and dominating them. And God sends Moses to be a deliverer for them. So God uses Moses to help them exit out of Egypt, to exodus from Egypt. And after they get into the wilderness, God calls Moses and says, Moses, come onto the mountain and I will give you my instruction and my law. And on top of the mountain, God gives Moses these two tablets of stone on which are written the Ten Commandments.

These Ten Commandments would have been the foundation for the Jewish life. They would have been the foundation for Jewish law. They would have governed every social interaction and every interaction that a Jewish person would have had with God. And Jesus here quotes the last six of those Ten Commandments. You see, the Ten Commandments, I’m giving you a lot of background here. The Ten Commandments are separated in two categories. You got one set that would have governed someone’s relationship with God and another set that would have governed someone’s relationship with everybody else. And Jesus starts quoting from that second set. And the man says, I’ve kept these. I am good.

Now, here’s the thing. In your own strength, it’s easy to keep that second set. If you don’t want to murder, just don’t go kill anybody. If you don’t want to commit adultery, then just go home at night and don’t let anybody else come into your home. If you don’t want to defraud anybody, then just be honest. If you don’t want to steal, then just keep your hands off people’s stuff. This set is actually easy to keep in your own strength. And it’s easy to be seen keeping them.

And Jesus gets to something deeper. This rich young ruler has everything together. He’s pursuing eternal life. He seems so good. But Jesus tells him, eternal life is a life we can’t create. We can’t create it in our own strength. The rich young ruler can’t do it. I can’t do it. Pastor Al can’t do it. We can’t create it because true life begins not with my goodness, but with God’s love.

Read with me starting in verse 21 and you’ll see what I’m seeing. Looking at him, Jesus loved him. Someone say loved. Jesus loved him and said to him, you lack one thing. Go, sell all you have, give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, then come and follow me. Oh, the man, he was dismayed by this demand. And he went away grieving because he had so many possessions.

Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, how hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were astonished at His words. And Jesus said to them, children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. They were even more astonished. And they said to one another, then who, who can be saved? Looking at them, Jesus said, with man, it’s impossible, not with God. Because all things are possible with God.

Man, the rich young ruler had everything together. He’s pursuing the life we all want. He’s pursuing eternal life. He’s a good guy. But the thing is, being good is not good enough. We can’t make ourselves come alive. We can’t earn the life we want. It’s got to be created for us. Jesus looks at the disciples and he, or he looked at the man and he loved him. Let it be known. If there’s one thing you take away from today is the fact that God loves us. And love always drives His demands for us. Love drives those. Jesus is looking at this man and He puts His hands on the one thing that’s keeping him away from God, his possessions. And Jesus’ demands, go, sell, give, then come, that would apply those first four commandments. Jesus said, okay, do you check off six, seven, eight, nine, 10? Okay, good. But the issue is you got to love God more than anything else. If you really love me more than anything else, you’d go sell it all and come and follow me then. This command that Jesus gives him out of love would have made the man act on love for God in a deeper way than he had ever had to before. But the man obviously is dismayed by this. And I’ve already said it. It’s because every person has something that stands between them and God. Every person has something that stands between them and God. And for this man, it was his stuff. Curious. If you’re honest with me, what would it be for you? Tim Keller is a pastor from Hopewell, Virginia, then moved to Newark City, planted a church up there and got a big following afterwards. And he has since passed away from cancer. And he identified four idols that most people kind of struggle with. These are core idols. These are things that we worship instead of God. And he says, your idol is either approval or status, comfort or power. And every person on this planet is working at worshiping one of those things. Curious. What is it for you? I’ll lead the way in vulnerability here. For me, it’s approval. I deeply want you to like me. I really want you to like me. Slavery to approval drove everything I did as a kid. It is something I wrestle with in every decision I make for our church, how I interact with Becca and my kids, how I interact with you guys. Because at the end of the day, whether you respect me or not, I want you to say, you know what though? I like Jeremy. I want to be approved by you. I just do. And that forces decisions every day. Am I going to hedge on the truth with this person because the truth might make them not like me? Am I going to stand on this conviction because this conviction isn’t like anymore? Or am I going to do this thing because it’s going to be seen by somebody and they will then like me? I’m not just preaching. I’m being real honest with you. I’ll tell you the same thing over a cup of coffee like Becca said. I want you to like me. What is it for you? If you were to put your heart under a microscope and you’d say, huh, approval, comfort, role, or status, what would you say before the Lord? I think all of us, we have something. And Jesus looks at this man who’s good on the outside. He does all the right stuff. He’s doing, he’s obeying the commandments. He’s no doubt. He’s going to his local church service. He’s doing all the stuff. But man, the comfort, the status that he had from all of his stuff, he couldn’t give it away. He couldn’t give it up. Jesus looks around as this man walks away dismayed. And He says how hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom. Man, totally counter-cultural words for the disciples there. The first week of our series through the Gospel of Mark, I unpacked some of the aspects of the kingdom of God. You see, the people of Israel had been expecting God to come and send His anointed saving Messiah for decades and for centuries and for millennia. They had been expecting God to come and redeem them and rescue them. They were enslaved in Egypt. They got some freedom and they were enslaved to Babylon and Assyria. Got a little bit of freedom. And now they are occupied by Rome again. They’re constantly asking, when is God going to deliver us? When are we going to be our own nation? When are we going to be able to make the decisions for ourselves? So they thought that to be in God’s kingdom, you had to be strong. You had to be able to protect yourself. You had to have some wealth. And we do that too. Only we don’t call it the kingdom of God. We call it prosperity. And I think that we have a false notion as well. We say, if I do things for God, He will bless me in return. If I give God my time at church, then He will make me more wealthy. If I serve God in this way, He will take care of my health. We make bargains with God all the time, but we think that God will prosper us if we do for Him. But Jesus says, if you have wealth, it’s actually a hindrance. It’s an obstacle. It’s not an aid. It’s not a help. It actually makes it harder for you to get into the kingdom.

The disciples ask the right question. Who? Who can be saved? I think oftentimes pastors look at that verse in verse 25. Jesus says, it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Guys like me want to soften Jesus’s words there. But Jesus chose the biggest animal that would have been known to a Jewish person. And He chose the smallest opening that would have been known to a Jewish person and said, it’s easier for that guy to go through the eye of a needle than for you to have some cash and get into the kingdom. It’s easier. It’s just flat out easier. And the disciples’ response, who then could be saved, tells us that Jesus, He wasn’t playing around. He wasn’t softening. He wasn’t sugarcoating anything. The disciples’ response, they tell us that Jesus’s words are serious and they are meant to be dealt with.

Friends, it is flat out hard to trust in Jesus when you’ve got a cushy bank account. Anybody ever experienced that? You come into payday and you get a bonus and you’re walking a little bit tall, right? Right? Feels a little uncomfortable in the room. Anybody else uncomfortable? This is flat out difficult. When you can provide for yourself and when you are able to sit on some rainy day funds, it’s hard to trust Jesus. It’s just hard.

Anybody ever been through some lean years though? Anybody ever been through some times where trusting in Jesus and a prayer was the only hope you had to make ends meet? I remember this time when we were in seminary. We were paying off my undergraduate student loans, paying for full-time tuition for me to attend class. I’m working odd hours at Chick-fil-A just to make a little bit of grocery money while Becca’s the one working full-time and man, we get that tuition check and we’re starting to have to make some decisions. You know what I mean? Man, we just get a random check for the exact amount of money as tuition. We’re not telling anybody our need. We’re not broadcasting it. I’m not tweeting about it. Nothing like that. God just provided. He didn’t always do that every month. Man, I remember the times He did that, right, sweetheart? And the way we felt God’s kindness and His provision and His care forced us into an active dependence and trust in Him that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Jesus says to walk with me, you got to trust me. To believe in me, man, you got to like believe in me. Man, it’s one thing. It’s one thing for me to look at this chair and say that’s a stout chair. It’s got four legs and everything. Don’t you worry. It’s one thing for me to say that thing will definitely hold me up. If I just sat here and some of y’all can’t see this, I apologize. If I hover over this chair and say, I trust in it, I bet it’ll hold me up. You would call me a liar because I’m not actually sitting in it. But Jesus says, you have to trust me. You have to rock off your feet and put your full weight on me. You have to trust in me.

And Jesus then says, it is hard for you to have wealth. Trust me. This is not a sermon where I’m going to say, you need to empty your bank account to put it up here. That is not what I’m saying. What I am saying though, is that for this man, he could not let go of his riches and have Jesus. What stands between you and Jesus? This man would have been an ideal candidate for the kingdom. He was outwardly moralistic in the fact that he kept all these commands. He was sufficiently religious. He had been well-versed in the Old Testament instruction. He was Clearly wealthy and well-associated. He was influential and he was earnest. This man would have been an ideal guy. He’s probably a deacon at a Southern Baptist church. He definitely attends Sunday school. If he does not lead Sunday school, he comes to all the church work days. Oh, which by the way, I’m supposed to announce on March the second, there really, there’s a church work day, March the second. It’d be really good if you show up. So it’s not just me and Becca and Buck, you know, sweeping some stuff up. So March the second, we want you here and it’ll be a great time as we clean. The rich young ruler would be here, you know, he would be here for the church work days. And Jesus says, it doesn’t matter. Come to church work day. It doesn’t clean you up for me. Getting baptized doesn’t make you right. Keeping all the rules isn’t enough.

The man walks away. Jesus looks at the disciples after they asked the right question, who can be saved? And He says, with man, it’s impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Can’t save yourself. The cold hard truth. You can’t save yourself. In fact, the Bible describes us this way. I’m going to read from Ephesians chapter two. The Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We are walking according to the way of the world. We are walking according to the ruler of the power of the air. That is Satan. We’re dead. Nothing a dead body can do to get itself off the gurney. Not at all. We are spiritually dead. Can’t save ourselves. It is impossible. But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love He has for us, makes us alive with Christ. Even though we are dead, you are saved by grace. You see, we can’t save ourselves. It is not in our ability. With man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are possible, including the greatest thing, which is meeting Jesus and coming from spiritual death to spiritual life, which is what we celebrated a few minutes ago with Aubrey Luton, making her faith in Christ public. That is spiritual life. That is salvation. We can’t do it ourselves. God has to do it for us.

And I’d be remiss if I did not give you an opportunity to respond to that right now. The water’s cold at this point. It was cold when we got in. It’s cold at this point. I’m not going to ask you to come down and get baptized. But here’s what I do want you to do. I want you to take a moment just by yourself and ask, Lord, do I know You? I know about You. Do I know You, Jesus? Am I ready to go to You today? If you’re not sure about that, I would love to have a conversation with you. Al would love to have a conversation with you. Becca and Miss Beth, we would love to give that time to talk with you about what that looks like to place your faith in Christ and to love Him and embrace His love for you. Don’t let today pass without beginning that conversation. Okay?

This man, he finds out that God has to make us alive. And the good news is that God loves us and wants to do it. Yet the life of walking with God is hard. It’s the life of death, I’d say. The life of death. Verse 28 through 31, it goes like this. Peter, responding, began to tell Jesus, Look, we have left everything and we have followed You. Truly, I say to you, Jesus said, there’s no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more, now at this time, houses, brothers and sisters, mothers, children, and fields with persecutions and eternal life and age to come. But many who are first will be last and the last first.

Jesus does promise exponential return. Anything you give up for Him, He’s going to give right back to you. You place your faith in Jesus and you get ostracized by your family, your uncles and your aunts think you’re a weirdo for taking Jesus seriously. You’re going to gain a whole bunch of family and uncles and aunts in this room. If you have to leave behind wealth in order to come and follow Jesus, you enter a relationship with the One that owns everything in the universe and you get to have His wealth at your disposal.

through prayer. If you have to give up dearest relationships in order to have a relationship with Jesus, God will supply that through the local church. He gives you everything that you need, but something else comes with it. Did you catch that funny word in verse 30? Persecutions. Following Jesus does merit persecution. I’d say being persecuted for following Jesus indicates you really are following Jesus. To use a sports analogy, from my high school time, no pain, no gain. There’s not a little bit of pain of walking with Jesus that I’m not sure you’ve actually gained Him. Once you gain Jesus, you start to orient your life around Him. And no matter how Christian our culture may be, there will always be some pushback to taking Jesus seriously at His word.

But here’s the news, friend, and you know this, our culture is no longer Christ-centered, amen? I think it used to be a very profitable thing for you to be associated with church. It used to be that our political leaders needed to be members of local churches. It used to be that going to church would warrant some benefit in the community. It used to be that what the Bible teaches as true and normal was taken as true and normal. But it’s just no longer the way, which means we’re entering a season in the life of America that America’s never been in before. And I can’t be more excited because that means walking with Jesus is no longer publicly supported. And that’s a good thing for the church. It’s a good thing for us to get some pushback for our faith. It’s a good thing for there to be a little bit of pain behind the game because the pain makes the game so much sweeter. Can I get an amen?

But Jesus also says, along with the hundredfold return, along with the persecutions, when you place your faith in Me, you get something else. The sweetest thing, eternal life. The very thing that the man was asking for that opened up our passage, Jesus promises to all those that leave everything for the sake of walking with Him. Jesus says, you will gain eternal life.

Jim Elliott, we talked about he and his wife, Elisabeth, a couple months ago. They were missionaries to an unreached indigenous tribe in Ecuador back in the 1950s, I believe it was. And they spent months of learning the local dialect. And they’d spent even more time than trying to make contact with the Aka Indians, trying just to communicate God’s love for them. They would give them gifts. They even convinced one of them to come up into the air in their little biplane one time. They thought things were going well. So they said, hey, it’s time for us to establish a beachhead close to their village. I think they’re ready for us to actually begin talking about Jesus with them. Jim Elliott and four other men go to establish that beachhead. But instead of being met with open arms, they’re met with armed soldiers and they are martyred. These five men give their lives at the edge of a spear, trying to share the gospel with this indigenous tribe that had never heard about Jesus before.

But before he died, Jim Elliott wrote these words. Beautiful. He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. He’s no fool to give up what he can’t keep to gain what he can’t lose. Because here’s the secret. None of this stuff, we can’t take any of it with us. You can’t take your bank account with you. You can’t take your stuff with you. You can’t take all the approval with you. But what you do get to have in the next life is life. Whatever it takes to gain life, give it up. Give up whatever is keeping you from Jesus because He wants to bring you to Himself and just show you the riches of His kindness toward you. You’ll walk into eternal life richer, if far better off than you could ever imagine.

Jesus says that many who are first will be last and the last first. Simply put, today’s the day. Some of us place our faith in Christ as a five-year-old and we have a legacy of decades of walking with Him. Some of us do it on our deathbed and we have mere minutes. Today’s the day. Some of us in the room, we’re on the greener side of things and you can have before you a lifetime of walking with Jesus and knowing His kindness for decades. Some of us are on the more seasoned side of the room and you’ve known about Jesus for a long time, but you’ve never actually sat down in the chair, you’ve never actually placed your faith in Him. Today’s the day. Begin that trade today. I would love to talk with you after the service. Here’s the thing. God is wild about you. He’s wild about you and He sent His Son for you and Jesus suffered the death that leads to life. And this is where I’m gonna start wrapping up our sermon for the morning. The death that leads to life. This is verses 32 through 34. They, Jesus and the disciples, are on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were astonished, but those who followed Him were afraid. Taking the 12 aside again, He began to tell them the things that would happen to Him. See, Jesus says, we’re going up to Jerusalem, the Son of Man. He’s gonna be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn Him to death. Then they will hand Him over to the Gentiles and they will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. However, He will rise after three days. Church, say rise. He will rise after three days.

Jesus is leading the group up to Jerusalem, which for us, we may not feel the full impact of that, but here’s the deal. Twice now, Jesus has promised He’s gonna go to Jerusalem and die for it. Multiple times, scribes and Pharisees and religious and cultural leaders have come from Jesus, hunted Him down wherever He and the disciples are, and they have ran Jesus out of towns. They’ve persecuted Him. They’ve mocked Him. They’ve tried to counteract His teaching and His ministry. All of the Gospel of Mark has been leading to this moment where, after three years of ministry condensed into ten chapters, it slows down to one week of His life stretched out over the final six chapters. There’s gonna be a pace change for us as we are studying this book, and it all happens here.

Jesus didn’t waver in His commitment to this plan whatsoever. He’s, in fact, leading the group up the road to Jerusalem, and He knows that seven things are gonna happen to Him. He’s gonna be handed over, condemned, handed over again. He’s gonna be mocked. He’s gonna be spat on. He’s gonna be flogged, and He’s gonna be killed, which is extremely PG terms for what happens to Jesus in front of the Roman guards and the Jewish leaders. Why would He go through that? He loves us. Hebrews 12:2 says that, “For the joy set before Him, Jesus Christ endured the cross and despised the shame.” You, friend, you are the joy that was set before Christ, that He would willingly subject Himself to this. John 3:16 says that, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to us.” It wasn’t drudgery. It wasn’t duty. It wasn’t discipline. It wasn’t any of those things. It was love that drove the Father to send His Son, and it was love that drove Christ the Son to come and give His life for you because God is wild about you. He’s wild about you. If you get nothing else today, know God loves you. He loves you so much that He would die for you, but He won’t stay dead. He will rise after three days. He conquers death because, as John 14:6 says, “I am the way and the truth and the what? I am the life.” Jesus is life itself, and His death and His resurrection secures our life.

Now come. Simply put, Jesus died for us. Died for us so that we could live with Him. Don’t get it twisted. Don’t think that you living for Jesus merits His death for you. Don’t think that doing all the right things makes it acceptable for God to have sent His Son for you. Don’t think that you tithing or you working or you evangelizing or you praying or you being baptized somehow makes you lovable to God. He loves you. Before you could love Him, before you could ever respond to His kindness, God loved you. If you get nothing else today, you should hear what I’ve said now 10 times. God loves you.

As I begin to wrap up, I just want to address three groups in the room. There’s some of us in the room that are saved Christians. You’ve met Jesus. You’ve placed your faith in Him, and He has shown you His kindness, and you have repented of your sins, and you’ve called on Him as Lord and Savior. You know God loves me.

Hold on to that. Don’t forget the fact that God loves you, and that’s why you live for Him. Some of us in the room are far away from Him. You’re not sure that’s why you’re here today. You know what’s standing between you and God because you like that thing a whole lot more than the prospect of walking with Jesus. You know exactly what it is that you live your life around. And I want to say welcome. This is exactly where you should be this morning. Because why? God loves you. And He’s wooing you to Himself, and He’s pursuing you, and He wants to show you just how deeply He cares about you. And my request to you this morning would just be to open yourself up to embrace that love.

Some of us in the room are what I would call unsaved Christians. Man, you know a lot about Jesus. And praise God for it. You’ve been in some church, maybe this church, for a long time. You’ve read the stories. You know about the Ten Commandments. You might know some of the Bible better than I do. Man, praise God for it. Maybe He’s protected you from things because you’ve been raised in Christian culture. Man, that’s great. Here’s my word to you: God loves you. And He wants so much more for you than you working for Him. He wants you to embrace that love.

So here’s the thing. I want to close the service this way. Peter, if you could go ahead and come on up. For everybody in the room, I want you to—you’re going to follow me in something. You show me your palms. I’m not tricking anybody. Don’t worry, okay? And just take these palms and just lay them palm side up in your lap. This is a posture of receiving. I’m going to pray for us. While I’m praying, I just want you to pray that you would receive what God has for you, okay? If you know that you’ve been walking with Jesus for years, receive more of His love and tell yourself yet again, “God, You love me, and I love You, and that’s why I’m here.” If you’re the unsaved Christian, I want you to receive God’s love for the first time in your life. And if you’re far away from Him, I want you to receive that love too. I’m going to pray for us. While I’m praying, you just pray as well, okay?

Jesus, God, I am standing here as well, just wanting to receive Your love today. Reminding myself, God, that I do everything I do not to earn Your love or to justify it, but because of it. God, I pray that You would help me to function out of Your love. Lord, for those in the room that don’t know You yet, I pray that You would use this moment to help them to receive Your forgiveness and to receive Your love. God, would You start conversations today that would change eternal trajectories for folks in the room. We do love You, Lord.